


In Dreams

by pennflinn



Category: The Lord of the Rings (Movies), The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Gen, Nightmares, One Shot, POV Multiple, Post-War of the Ring, References to Depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-27
Updated: 2020-04-27
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:00:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23879545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pennflinn/pseuds/pennflinn
Summary: "How do you pick up the threads of an old life? How do you go on, when in your heart you begin to understand...there is no going back?"The Hobbits begin their new lives in the Shire after the War of the Ring. But though the war is over, the nightmares persist.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 28





	In Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> This is set pretty firmly in book-verse (references to the Scouring of the Shire and Pippin’s fate at the Battle of the Morannon, for instance), but it’s possible that there are echoes of the movie-verse as well. Please forgive any errors.
> 
> Also please note the tags — there are some allusions to depression, at least depression as I sometimes experience it. If that may be triggering (especially now), feel free to click away.
> 
> Enjoy!

Merry dreams of ice. It starts at his fingertips, as though he’s dipped his fingers just up to the nail bed in a bath of ice water. Then it creeps up his hands, numbing his muscles before he has a chance to reach out and grasp for some measure of safety. Up it climbs, passing his elbows and his shoulders and clawing its way into his lungs. One last breath before the plunge, and then he is suffocating.

But in his dreams he will not die, not even as the air freezes in his body. He can only stand atop some darkening battlement and watch as a great host of heroes marches to its doom. And he thinks — how much easier it would be to take his last breath upon a sword beside them.

But instead the black fog closes in around him, and at last the ice overtakes his heart, and he hears echoes of the Witch-king’s laugh calling him back to wakefulness.

* * *

Pippin dreams of fire. Orc hands grab him, sharp nails and whips setting his skin aflame. They drag him screaming from the clearing, away from a dying Boromir. Though Pippin knows that his own fate is dire, he strains forward toward the battle. Boromir meets his gaze, but the warrior’s eyes transform into Faramir’s in an instant.

Faramir lays atop a pyre, burning. The smell of oil and singed flesh fills the hall, but Faramir does not move. He simply looks at Pippin, as though waiting. Pippin struggles and thrashes, but he is too small; he is powerless against the big hands that drag him from the hall and slam doors in his face.

And then he is the one who is burning. It’s in his bones, what feels like a thousand fractures as he lies beneath a troll and prays for an easy death in his brief moments of wakefulness. He should have known, after all, that he was too small for a battle this large, should have known that only a crucible awaited him at the end. He did not expect to die beneath a troll, but he supposes nobody gets to choose their final rest. His ribs are crushed, he is broken, and nobody is coming after all. The scorching pain is unbearable, but the loneliness is worse.

* * *

Sam dreams of smoke. It seemed to be around them at all times near the end of their journey to the mountain. It rose from the carcass of the earth and crept down from the skies as well. Choking fumes to make one’s eyes water and one’s throat bleed. No water could dispel it — that is, if they’d had any at all.

And Frodo — his dear Mr. Frodo — in his dreams the Ringbearer looks as he did that last day of the Quest, frail beyond his years and nearly empty behind the eyes. He opens his cracked, bloodied lips to say something, but no sound emerges.

_ What is it, Mr. Frodo?  _ Sam says.  _ Tell me what you need. _

But instead of words it is smoke issuing from Frodo’s mouth, and then he is slowly disappearing with it. With a cry, Sam reaches out for him, but his hands pass instead through the thin, gray tendrils rising up into the gloom.

The fire that had been Frodo’s spirit, like any fire untended, has dwindled, and Sam watches with a scream on his lips as the last of his Frodo vanishes into the air.

* * *

Frodo dreams of green grass between his toes and a basket of freshly picked fruit at his side. In his dreams he wakes on the side of a grassy knoll, having fallen asleep under a yellow summer sun. Somewhere farther off, a river burbles, and he hears children laughing. The day has not yet ended; he has not slept through dinner, which his companions have promised will be extravagant. No harm eating one more strawberry — there is time yet to enjoy the late afternoon.

It’s the sweetest strawberry he has ever tasted, although he’s been saying it an awful lot lately.

He realizes that he’s in the shade of the Party Tree; the leaves glitter and make the shade dance on his face, and the branches are hung with lights for a feast later. He takes another strawberry and looks up, mesmerized by the colors and the movement. Another nap seems prudent. The earth cradles him so nicely, and the day is unhurried. If he wakes to find that a party has sprung up around him — well, that wouldn’t be such a trouble, would it?

The dream lulls him back into sleep, and he wakes in his own bed in Bag End feeling warm and soft and untroubled.

That first moment is a lovely one; in half-wakefulness he still idly wonders if a party truly is waiting for him when he opens his eyes.

The moment has just taken root when reality hits him once more, and the colorful feelings of the sun and the grass and the breeze are stripped one by one from him. The old wound in his shoulder throbs, sending a chill through him and dispelling every good feeling he’d hoped to preserve in waking. He sits up, now fully awake, and massages the shoulder until the chill passes.

Waking is knowing that the Party Tree has been cut down for years, and realizing that he has never truly had a taste for bread and wine and strawberries as he used to, and feeling that empty space between the second and fourth fingers on his right hand. Waking does not always happen abruptly, but it is always there, lying in anticipation.

The world is beginning to rebuild itself. Merry has taken to telling stories in the tavern. Pippin clears the last of the wreckage from the Scouring that soured their return home. Sam has buried a seed from Lórien near the old Party Tree, and it will grow into something beautiful.

The world may yet return to Frodo. But he’s borne so much already, and he fears he may not be fit to bear any more — not even waiting.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading, and a big thank you to everyone who commented on my last LotR fic. You are all very kind and have made me much less nervous about making these stories public. I would appreciate any and all comments below. Stay safe, all.
> 
> -Penn


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